It is excruciating. She seemed shamefully underprepared, asked a lot of closed questions and should've killed the interview long before she did. I also glanced over a comment on Youtube saying he has Asperger's.

To me all interviews are hard work and if I had to interview a precocious kid I would put in double the legwork, prepare the subject a bit more and strike up a rapport with him and try not to be so patronising. Not that I know whether they attempted any of that before putting him to air.

I also know that trying to get information out of strangers for the public is only appealing to certain people - and that's why I leave the interviewing stuff to the people who like it!

That was painful, but only because the kid wasn't playing up for the camera. He just didn't seem to really care and was answering questions as anyone probably does in real life - hesitation, thinking the question through, mishearing, not admitting error - or at least trying to justify it.

There are the people you want to propose to after talking to them for ten minutes *cough*Anita McNaught*cough*.Few people, man or woman alike, have survived the McNaughty personal experience unscathed.

and you wanna know how many its sold, D? You angling to sneak onto this?No, I think he wants to know if it's now worth suing for a royalty payment.

That was painful...Yes, but what an advertisement for home schooling!!

What a bitchie blog.We all know stoned/addicts but to start a wee whisper circle of - thank god it's not me - You BITCH.We all have artists we will happily buy the CD but not buy another ticket to see.

Sorry, I wasn't intending this to become a defamatory guessing game. So I've removed any names people have suggested in that vein (pun intended).

It's really not that interesting. "Musician does drugs" is hardly a revelatory headline - I wasn't trying to titilate or start a wee whisper circle, especially when I don't even know it's true. I just thought it might go some way to justifying the person's poor behaviour.

Yeah, I should point out that I have been a lawyer (before the lure of the big bucks of journalism got too tempting...), and yes, suing someone for defamation is a long hard expensive road. And putting a question mark at the end of a statement is certainly not a defence.

But regardless, I'm not too keen on exposing PublicAddress to an action it couldn't afford, if say, for instance, Hayley Westenra, who probably could afford to mount such an action, got out of bed on the wrong side and decided to sue.

(Disclaimer: Based on my encounters with her I'd bet my house that Hayley Westenra has never used heroin. I'd have to buy one first, but then I'd bet it.)

Anyway, legally actionable or not, I just don't think defaming people is a very nice thing to do.

Even when it's true (and therefore not defamatory, but just damaging) sometimes it's preferable not to say anything, lest the stones start flying in the direction of our own greenhouses. (Referring generally to bad behaviour here of course, not implying that we're all heroin users).